Worst of the Worst: 50 of Our Most Poorly Reviewed Products

Here at Maximum PC we appreciate quality. We love seeing top-notch products get the high scores and florid praises they've rightfully earned. It's not all smiles and sunshine in the testing labs, though. In fact, many of the products we've reviewed over the years are more Ass Kicked than Kick Ass. You know the Best of the Best? Well, these are the worst of the worst.

While we thankfully haven't had to deal with too many terrible products lately, we didn't have to dig all that deep into the archives to find a (not-so) healthy 50 photo sampling of some of the worst we've seen, from 2005 to July 2011.

What are some of the worst products you've ever used? Let us know!

Edit: Some readers have mentioned that it's difficult to read the text in some of the images. We appologize for the inconvenience--it's a limitation of the current gallery format that we're looking in to. In the mean time, you can view any picture at maximum size by right-clicking it in the gallery, and selecting to open the link in a new tab or a new window.

I agree with Praak. This article was okay but I expected something different. Do some soul searching and give us the 50 biggest mistakes MaxPC has made over the years. Show us some 8's or 9's that quietly went nowhere or failed miserably with the test of time.

OK, if this is the worst of the worst of the worst, why is MaxPC giving so many of them a 4 out of 10? Not recongizing true hideosity when you see it? Leaving yourselves a little room in case something even more horrible comes along?

Seriously, if you're seeing true unmitigated crap, give it a 1. We count on you guys not to pull punches!

I've got the lights for the Phillips AmBx system, and they were a lot of fun in the games they supported...though, I got mine on a Woot sale with H.A.W.X for thirty bucks, so yeah, 300 for the standalone kit with the silly fans makes it no fun at all...

To all who may be having a problem viewing the articles, I'm using Google Chrome and the Hover View extension. It works awesomely. Just mouse over the image and move the mouse to the left until it's big enought to read.

Also I'd like to say that as I was reading the article about the MR-500i Music Player, if I didn't read the title first, I'd swear I was reading a review of the iPod Touch. lol.

Hey guys, I know it's difficult to read the text in some of the images. I'm sorry for the inconvenience--it's a limitation of the current gallery format and we're looking into ways to fix it. In the mean time, you can view any picture at maximum size by right-clicking it in the gallery, and selecting to open the link in a new tab or a new window.

Dammit! I almost was able to say that I successfully avoided all of the product on my own until I got to ClamWin. For a very short time I became enamored with portableapps.com and wound up using Clamwin for about two weeks... then I came to my senses.

Please change the title to 51 and include this article. See below posters. They're covering the problems pretty well.

Now go find the person who did this work and ask them if they're proud of such a crap job. If they are, ask them to find employment somewhere else. If they are not, have them and their manager stay late to fix the scans.

your choice of words for the title makes it sound like the reviews themselves were poor...

also how the fuck am i supposed to read these snippets at such low res (even after zoomed) such a shame because this was so interesting i coulda sat here for hours reading these fascinating reviews... but i can't because the images are so small and blurry.... :(

Why is this stuff always blurry? With your expertise everything on your site should be clear. This goes for wayback monday, or whatever you call it, also. I like to read this kind of stuff, but when it is so hard to read I don't. And how about some kind of reply.

Showing a copy of the article and having to expand it is fine. However, is there a way to scroll to the next image without having to close the first one? I hover the mouse over the expanded image on the right and a tooltip says 'next image' but when I click on it, it closes the original and I have click on the next and expand again.

A few images is fine, but fifty? That gets a bit annoying (I stop reading after the third one)...